


Sherry Who?

by ButterflyGhost



Series: Learning to Dance series [3]
Category: due South
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Kidfic, happy!happy!joy!joy!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 03:26:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5523698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy Christmas, Vicki!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Sherry Who?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vic32](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vic32/gifts).



> Happy Christmas, Vicki!

Mikey was a big boy and didn’t suck his thumb anymore, though right now, curled up on his big cousin’s lap, he kinda wanted too. Because he was so comfortable and so sleepy, and her voice was so nice. She was grown up, ten years old even, and she was very pretty. Which was a shame, because you weren’t allowed to marry your sister, even if she was the prettiest girl in the world.

 

She wasn’t his sister really. He’d found that out when he was four and cried for a week. Then this week some of the kids at school had told him she wasn’t even his cousin. Then they sniggered because she walked with a crutch, and sometimes when she was very tired sat in a wheelchair. (Only when she was very tired, though.) Well, when they started laughing at the way she walked Mikey just _had_ to fight them.  One of them went home limping for real. Mikey came home with a black eye and his head held high. Then his Ma explained gently that he shouldn’t get into fights, and that actually, Cathy was his adopted cousin.

 

He’d cried a bit at that, but he cheered up when it dawned on him that maybe he _could_ marry her after all. Though - he reckoned he should wait before he asked her. For all he knew someone was going to tell him that she was secretly an extra grandmother or something.

 

Whatever she was, she was the prettiest girl in the world, and she was telling him bedtime stories.

 

“What happened then?” he prompted when her voice faded. She blinked awake and smiled down at him.

 

“You’re not sleepy yet?”

 

“No.” Mikey lied and yawned into his fist. “You said your Dad pushed your Daddy out of a plane, and then he jumped out too, and they landed in a lot of _lot_ of snow.”

 

“Yes,” Cathy yawned now too, which was silly because this was the most exciting story ever.

 

 _“So?_ What happened next?” Mikey closed his eyes and tried to picture it. He could see where they’d landed in the snow like it was a painting in his mind. Two silhouettes in a field of big white, like when Tom and Jerry ran through walls. Uncle Ray (his other Uncle Ray) would have left a big flailing splash of an outline, but Uncle Benny would have fallen neat. Tomorrow, he thought, he would make a drawing of it for them to put up on their fridge. They’d like that. Everyone liked his drawings. When Mikey grew up, he was going to be a painter. Or an astronaut. Or a trash collector. He could drive the lorry. He hadn’t decided yet.

 

Oh. He was falling asleep, and he hadn’t heard the end of the story. He kicked his legs against the couch cushions to wake himself up. Cathy was shaking her head, looking down at him with fond eyes.

 

“You’re not going to sleep till I finish the story, are you?”

 

“No.” He shook his head stubbornly.

 

“I could finish it tomorrow.”

 

“Like that Indian lady.”

 

Cathy looked puzzled for a moment, then her eyes brightened. “Oh, you mean  Scheherazade. She wasn’t Indian; she was Arabian.”

 

“Sherry who?”

 

“Scheherazade. She’s a princess who tells a thousand and one bedtime stories to a king.”

 

“Do you think you could do that?”

 

“What, tell you a thousand stories?”

 

“A thousand and one.”

 

Cathy pondered this and stroked her eyebrow with her thumb. “Well, I suppose I could try.”

 

“Okay.” Mikey wriggled and made himself more comfortable. His eyes drooped. “So,” he mumbled. “What happened next?”

 

What happened next had something to do with more snow, and climbing mountains, and sledding down it (or maybe the sledding was something else. Mikey was half asleep by now.) His eyes closed and his thumb found its way to his mouth. This was a nice story for Christmas Eve, what with all the snow and everything.

 

Cathy would tell him the rest of the story tomorrow after everyone had opened their presents.

 

Cathy’s voice was gentle as she talked on and stroked his forehead. When he slept he didn’t so much fall asleep as step into it. One minute he was lying on the couch. The next he was with Cathy’s Dads and his Zio Ray and everyone was playing in the snow. He was there too, and so was Dief. Best of all Cathy was running around laughing and didn’t need her crutches. Mikey smiled and threw a snowball, and then Santa Claus turned up.

~*~

 

“Is he asleep?” Uncle Ray peered through the doorway, then tiptoed in. “Here, I’ll take him.”

 

“Thanks,” Cathy said, and stretched.

 

“Thank you, young lady. We’d never have got all the presents under the tree if you hadn’t kept an eye on him.”

 

“It’s okay; I like it. He’s sweet.”

 

“You’re as bad as your Daddy,” Uncle Ray said. “You think every kid you ever met is cute. Soft as pudding, both of you.”

 

Cathy rolled her eyes. “And you’re not?”

 

“Shush. You’ll ruin my reputation. Someone’s got to be the Grinch, and since I’m the grumpiest, I get the job.”

 

“Grumpy, yeah, right.”

 

“Stop rolling your eyes, young lady. You ain’t a teenager yet. And besides – you don’t want them to roll right out of your head.”

 

She poked her tongue out at him, and he grinned, bending down and scooping Mikey up in his arms.

 

“See you later, Alligator.” Just for fun, she rolled her eyes. He rolled his right back at her and pretended to leave in a huff. She grinned, snuggling into the throw that Frannie had wrapped over her and Mikey earlier. She was half asleep when her Dads came in.

 

“Hey, Sweet Knees. You need help getting up?” Cathy opened her eyes. Daddy was smiling down at her.

 

“Hey, Hedgehog,” she replied, looking behind him to see Dad leaning against the doorframe. He was smiling at them both. “Hi, Dad.”

 

“Hello, Princess.”

 

Oh. The Christmas spirit had well and truly got to them. “What a disgusting display of sentimentality,” she said, heaving herself back into a sitting position. Daddy cracked up laughing, and Dad started giggling helplessly. Which was why she’d said it after all.

 

Daddy stopped laughing first, though his eyes looked a little bit evil as he said, “So. Do you need help getting up?”

 

“Yeah,” she admitted. She reached up a hand, and he tugged – then he stooped and the next thing she knew she was over his shoulder, and he was running from the room.

 

“Ben,” he said. “Look what I got for Christmas! I got a monster!”

 

Dad shook his head as he followed after them. “Good God,” he declared. “Will they ever grow up?” He was still grinning, so Cathy decided (as she had done on several occasions over the years) that no, she was never going to grow up.

 

Daddy went quiet as he tiptoed into the room she was sharing with her girl cousins.

 

“Night night,” he whispered as he set her down on her bed.

 

“Night,” she whispered at both of them. "And sod off, both of you. Some of us need our beauty sleep.”

 

Dad started giggling again; Daddy told him to shush, and the door clicked shut. She could hear them walking down the corridor together, being as quiet as they could given the squeaky floor. Dad was whispering, sounding outraged and amused. “Well, you’re the one who let her watch Monty Python....” She puzzled about that. What did Monte Python have to do with anything? She’d ask them later what on earth they had been talking about. She smiled then in the darkness. She’d enjoyed telling Mikey all about her daft Dads’ even dafter adventures. Maybe she wouldn’t mind being Scheherazade and telling him more stories. So what if she embellished them a little?

 

There were always more stories, after all.  

 


End file.
